Innovative tips and tricks to help you get flat abs, lose body fat, fight aging & live a healthier life. I'll even cover controversial topics that mainstream health "experts" don't understand about nutrition...the TRUTH about cholesterol & saturated fat, carbs, protein, and even superfoods you may have never heard of!

Tuesday

Fat Loss Tips: Nuts, Dining Mistakes, Antioxidants, and more

Before I get to today's fitness and fat loss tips, I have one quick announcement:

I forgot to mention this previously... As you may know, I'm not a fan of most supplements because the supp industry is rampant with scams, false promises, and the fact that probably about 95% of supplements just flat out don't work.

When it comes to fat loss, I've yet to be convinced there are ANY supps at all that help whatsoever with fat loss.

However, I do believe in only a few supplements for good health and other benefits, and those are

1. Fish oil or krill oil2. Antioxidants

As I mentioned in other newsletters, because of my distrust for most supp companies, one of the few that I stand by is owned by several of my good friends and colleagues in the industry that I've known for years...and that's my friends at Prograde Nutrition.

I forgot to mention a couple months ago that in addition to our US and CA subscribers, they've finally made shipping available to our subscribers in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, and a handful of other countries. If you see your country available on their checkout form, then you can now order and have shipped right to your door.

This is a powerful antioxidant blend of wolfberry, pomegranate, green tea, acai, high ORAC coffee-berry, and red wine extract.

My other recommendation is their Krill Oil (EFA icon), which has been tested as having over 47x the antioxidant power of regular fish oil. Krill oil is also a potent source of astaxanthin, which can help to protect your skin from UV damage. Also, the phospholipids in Krill oil enhance it's absorption in your body compared to fish oil.

Try to eat a handful of any type of nuts (almonds, pecans, walnuts, macadamias, etc...preferably raw, not roasted) 3x per day... once in the morning before breakfast, once a little while before dinner, and once before bedtime.

Important: make sure you're positive you don't have allergies to any nuts.

The healthy fats combined with powerful vitamin/mineral/antioxidant profile of nuts helps to quell your appetite and reduce cravings by giving your body what it needs. The result is that you'll eat less calories overall in your other meals by reducing your cravings and appetite and satisfying your body's nutrition needs with these nutrient-packed little treats.

The end result of frequent nut-eating -- a leaner healthier body for you!

2. Stop eating in front of the TV!

Eating a meal while you're distracted by the television is proven to lead to overconsumption of food by mindless eating.

Instead, if you want to eat healthier, you need to eat in a quiet setting that actually allows you to focus on what you're eating and truly enjoy the natural tastes of the food you're eating.This helps you to eat slower, and eat less calories overall because you allow your brain to recognize that you've eaten enough, instead of being in a dazed and distracted state while you eat in front of the TV.

The end result -- healthier eating habits that will last for life and give you a better body!Ok, that's it for today's tips... I'll be back in a few days with more tips and tricks to help you get a better body for life.

Motivation to get in shape; fast workouts in 5 minutes

First announcement for today:

By popular demand, I finally have the entire audiobook MP3 version of the Truth about Six Pack Abs plus additional motivational audios for you available.

This is a great opportunity to use the time you would normally spend driving, commuting, or doing other daily tasks and instead of wasting time listening to the same songs over and over on the radio, make use of that time to get ideas for getting in the shape of your life.

Get the audiobook MP3s of Truth about Abs as well as the additional motivational audios here:

How many times do you use the excuse that you "don't have time to workout today"?Well, I know for many people this is a frequent excuse, and with super-busy schedules these days, it's not a surprise. However, there ARE still ways to make sure you do something to stimulate your metabolism, increase your heart rate, and work your full body muscles, all in less than 5 minutes.

Since you can do this in only 5 minutes/day, there is absolutely NO EXCUSE for not at least getting in some sort of workout. Now I don't recommend this being your only form of workout as you'll still want other variety, but for those extra busy days where you just can't find the time, this will keep you on track.

Set aside 5 minutes either in the morning before work, on your lunch break, or after work for this "mini-workout".

What you can do is this:

Grab a dumbbell or kettlebell (if you have one at your house). If you don't have a dbell or kbell, I have an alternate below.

Now spend 5 minutes doing as many reps as you can of 1-arm dbell or kettlebell swings alternated with 1-arm snatches.

After 60-90 seconds, most people will start to slow down, so start taking 10 second breaks to catch your breath enough to do another 5-6 swings and snatches with each arm. Keep alternated as many reps as you can get of each exercise with 10 second mini-rests.

Get as many reps as you can in 5 minutes. We're going for as much work accomplished as possible in these 5 minutes!

If you do this with intensity, you'll have worked your entire body VERY thoroughly in only 5 minutes and will be huffing and puffing for breath.

If all you've got is 5 minutes, this is a great way to really "shock" your body into increasing metabolic rate. And there's really no way that you can't fit at least a 5-minute workout into your daily schedule no matter how hectic the day is.

If you don't have a dumbbell or kettlebell available, you can substitute any 2 of these exercises alternated with one another for the 5 minutes:

bodyweight squats

lunges

jump squats

jump lunges

pushups

If you're not familiar with any of the exercises mentioned in this article, make sure you get a copy of the Truth about Six Pack Abs, and you'll see everything in detail.

btw, if you don't yet have a copy of the Truth about Six Pack Abs Program, you can get the entire program combined with the Audiobook version plus the additional motivational audios for a discount here:

Thursday

How weight training saved my leg...

As you know, I'm a HUGE proponent of regular weight training regardless of whether your goal is fat loss, muscle building, or even just general health.

I have a quick story today on how regular weight training most of my adult life just saved me from a broken leg recently!

A couple weeks ago, I was skiing in Utah in some deep, deep powder. We came over a ridge and saw a beautiful steep wide-open slope that looked like an untouched powder field.

I started ripping down the powder full speed when all of the sudden I crashed into some hidden (and jagged!) boulders that were hidden just a couple inches beneath the powder surface, and since the wind had blown the surface flat, you couldn't even see any bump or outline that there were hidden boulders.

Well, I'll tell you... I slammed into those boulders full-speed, they ripped me right out of my skis and sent me cartwheeling down the steep slope hitting every part of my body on more jagged boulders.

Good thing I wear a helmet huh!

The place that I slammed the hardest on the rocks was my leg, right smack-dab on my shin bone. It was an extremely deep gash on my shin, and we can even feel that there seems to be a bone chip missing from that spot now on my leg.

However, the good news is that despite slamming my leg full speed onto a huge nasty boulder, I didn't break my leg. As a matter of fact, the next day, I was back out skiing without any problems with my leg.

I'm willing to bet anything that if I hadn't been a regular weight lifter for my entire adult life, that I would have easily snapped my leg and be in a cast right now.

Beyond just the benefits of making you leaner, building muscle, increasing your metabolic rate, improving your heart health, etc, etc... weight training also drastically increases your bone density, so that you are more protected when life throws accidents at you like this little rock-slamming ski incident of mine.

And I'm sure you've heard about senior citizens breaking their hips when they have a simple slip & fall later in life? Well, if they had been weight training most of their lives, those hip fractures would be a lot less common.

Thanks to all of those years of heavy deadlifts, squats, lunges, and so forth, I still have a leg that's not snapped in two!

Now let's go pump some iron!

On the topic of weight training, here's a great workout program that I used a couple months ago which really gave me some unique new ideas on how to structure sets, reps, and rest periods... pretty cool method:

Sunday

Do soymilk, tofu, and veggie (soy) burgers make you fat?

I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with people over the years where they tell me that they are trying to eat healthier... and because of that, they say that they have begun drinking soy milk, eating "veggie burgers" (which are usually made with processed soy among other ingredients), or eating tofu, etc.

It's no wonder that most people mistakenly believe that soy is a "health food"... especially after the soybean industry spends billions of dollars per year marketing this junk and trying to convince you that it's somehow a healthy food.

I think you'll sing a different tune after you read this article below... it was contributed to this ezine by a Nutritionist named Catherine Ebeling, and I highly respect her writings.

Thursday

Drinks that are still making people fatter

Here are a few nutrition aspects I've noticed lately about why many people are still struggling to get in shape due to their nutrition...

1. People are drinking WAY too many of these "sports drinks"...you know, several of the most popular brands that end in "ade". I've even talked to several people lately that didn't even realize how much sugar they were drinking by downing 3-4 of these "sports drinks" every single day.

Some people even seem to have this false notion that sports drinks are "healthy" because the commercials show finely tuned athletes drinking them. I assure you that there's nothing remotely healthy about sports drinks, nor do they improve your performance in anything.Most of these sports drinks contain about 15 grams of sugar per 8 oz serving... so if someone drinks three 16-oz bottles (48 oz total) of sports drinks per day, that's an extra 90 grams of pure sugar (360 sugar calories) each DAY!

And that's 90 grams of pure sugar without any real nutrition. Even if some brands add some artificial vitamins to the sugary mix, it's still useless nutrition because it didn't come from real foods.

Someone that drinks 3 sports drinks per day could save approx. 131,000 calories per YEAR by completely cutting out sports drinks. That could equate to approximately 37 lbs!

And don't be fooled by the sports drinks that are trying to sell "light" versions now that are lower in sugar, or even sugar-free... they are simply loaded with artificial sweeteners and other chemicals, which could cause even more of a hormonal mess in your body.Check out this article about that topic:

As I've been saying all along... stick with pure water or unsweetened teas instead of sports drinks or other sweetened drinks.

2. I'm seeing more and more people that are still overly addicted to aggressive tastes... they need to heavily sweeten their coffee and teas... they need to heavily salt their foods or eat too many processed foods that came from a box or can or frozen entree.

I wrote an article on this topic of aggressive tastes a couple months ago and this was a turning point for many people that helped them to change their eating habits to get healthier for good. Here's the article: